Humming Bird feeds during snow and ice storm in Seattle January 2012I posted some photos earlier this week (Seattle Ice Storm Photos Plus 24 Hours of Peace and Quiet), but I promised more so here they are. 🙂  There isn’t any music on this slideshow because 50% of you love them with music, the other half doesn’t, so I left it out this time.  I wish my photos showed just how beautiful it was.  They just don’t tell the story as much as being here.  No power, no phones (cell or landline), no “real world” slipping in…just pure, unadulterated silence, and it truly was golden.  I loved every minute of our reprieve from the craziness that is life and look forward to enjoying some down time thanks to Mother Nature soon.

The storms lasted just over 7 days and started with snow which prompted me to write Snow Days Are My Favorite Kind of Days Here in Washington.   We had a day of warmer temperatures and a slight melt, then more snow followed by freezing rain which turned the snow into the most beautiful ice sculptures, and then came the wind storm.

Yes the National Guard was called in and a state of emergency was declared, but before you call us weather wimps (again) it was the ice and wind storms that led to the declarations.  Power outages and downed trees caused so many roads to be impassible. One thing we’re known for is our beautiful landscapes covered in trees….the problem is they’re just not sturdy enough to withstand these freak storms.  We lost half the height of our Birch tree (in some photos it’s upriht and in others it shows it snapped in half).  The neighborhood is covered in branches and the hubby and son took their chainsaws down to the park and cleared the trees and now we have firewood for the rest of the winter.

Here’s a post about the safety items we had stored away from a weather emergency and what you can pack away so you’ll be ready.  We were pretty darn comfortable and could have gone days longer without power.  Luckily we didn’t have to.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of winter looks like.